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A Poem for a Forensics Performance

When I meet you, you’ll be standing there
On a country road, hazel hair and hazel eyes,
And when my horse slips on the ice
And you help me up; eternity will be in our lips,
As you infect me with your seductress serum.
You’ll be an orphan, poor, obscure, plain and little,
But to me you’ll be exquisite,
A lovely nymph, or an Egyptian queen,
And the most beautiful woman in Troy.
And I’ll be a destitute, proud, and mysterious man.
But I’ll be the god of your idolatry.
I’ll take your hands, palm to palm, a holy dreamers’ kiss.
Civil war will rage outside our Georgia plantation house,
Forcing me to send you away to be safe.
And I’ll write you Scarlett letters
Addressed in loopy script, “To My Sweet Dear One,”
And from 10,000 light years away you’ll still be my
Princess Leia or Josephine or Jasmine or Dianna,
Depending on how you do your hair that day.
Then years later,
While you wait in a death sentence prison
To burn for a crime you didn’t commit,
I’ll follow the colors of the wind to get back to you,
But it’ll take me twenty years.
Suitors will come, one hundred and eight of them,
And you’ll turn them all down, waiting for my rescue.
But on the day I burst forth from the enchanted forest
Twelve knights of my round table in tow,
Slaying dragons and breaking spells,
Dodging sirens and never letting go
Of the hope that I can hold you, my Rose, again,
You will let down your hair and I’ll climb
To your secluded tower to find that you
Are torn between two loves, one pale and mysterious,
The other dark and rough,
And I am an afterthought.
And in my grief at your indecision,
I will learn to play the acoustic guitar,
And play such sad songs and sing so mournfully
That the gods will weep with me for centuries.
And when you believe I’ve given up,
You’ll find a happy dagger or a friendly drop
And drink a thousand poisons
To end your sorrow, cutting thy youth in twain,
But I’ll trek all the way down to the underworld
Fighting off Hades himself
To undo the disservice you’ve done the world,
And as we ride off into the sunset on our white horse,
Singing our song,
I’ll turn to you and say, in a voice softer than velvet,
“Here’s looking at you, kid.”